Green shoot (me): Delinquent balances underlying commercial mortgage-backed securities totaled $32.55 billion in October, up more than 500% from October 2008. They’re expected to top $65 billion by June, which would be a record 8.3% of the total.

Michele Bachmann, idiot: “Just over a year ago, 100 percent of the private economy was private.” Uh-huh. And just over a year ago, 100 percent of water was wet.

Jon Kyl, moron: The Arizona senator, who has repeatedly said President Obama needs to heed the request of Gen. Stanley McChrystal for more troops in Afghanistan, says any kind of deadline for getting them out — an “exit strategy” — would be “exactly the wrong way to go.” Perhaps he should have run that position past McChrystal, who said in October: “Gentlemen, I am coming into this job with 12 months to show demonstrable progress here — and 24 months to have a decisive impact. That’s how long we have to convince the Taliban, the Afghan people and the American people that we’re going to be successful. … That’s not a choice. That’s a reality.”

Alberto Gonzalez, imbecile: The former attorney general and unindicted co-conspirator, unable to find a job in any law firm, anywhere, or teaching law at any law school, anywhere, tells a political-science course at Texas Tech to “dream big” and hang in there until your crony network elevates you to power.

Jason Linkins, not an idiot, moron or imbecile OR deluded: “I’d describe Politico‘s brand of journalism as banality, added to Scientology, multiplied by the spasmodic frenzy of a tween who hasn’t learned to displace their unfulfilled erotic needs onto emo vampires.”

Ben Nelson, just dumb, but United States Senator dumb, meaning he’s in a position to cause actual trouble: We need to pay for the Afghanistan escalation, but we don’t want to increase the deficit and we don’t want a war tax because we fought WWII without one, so let’s sell war bonds! (I am now cleaning my own gray matter off the walls of my study.)

Whom would Jesus card?: The Houston Salvation Army is among seven charities checking the immigration status of poor families before giving toys to the kids.

Needed to create jobs: More direct infrastructure investment, fewer tax credits. This imbalance hobbled Stimulus I, which was no more than half as big as it needed to be to begin with.

The return of common sense:Fafblog on the war in Afghanistan: “Let us never forget just what’s at stake in the war in Afghanistan: nothing less than the success of the war in Afghanistan.” Pretty much.

Plus, he sounds exactly like Rush Limbaugh. Also.: MSNBC talk-show host Ed Schultz ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He had this to say about the Obama state-dinner party crashers (whom, I promise, I will mention no more): “What if one of them were a ninja? Obama could have been killed.” On hearing this, my thoughts ran roughly in this order: 1) Ninjas? Cool! 2) Yeah, and he could have been killed even though they weren’t ninjas. Idiot. 3) Pirates v. ninjas! 4) Obama v. Ninjas! 5) Obama v. Ninjas: The Video Game! (c) 2009 Lex Alexander. I win.

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio David and Tamron, than are dreamt of in your philosophy: Of course they let bin Laden get away at Tora Bora on purpose. No other explanation comports with both the facts we have and Occam’s Razor.